tSoGS - John 1:1-15 Reflection

TSoGS? The Story of God's Story - a fifteen week whirlwind tour of the Bible. If you missed Sunday, here's a link to week one's guide which has a five day reading plan. Why five days? If you are faithful, you can use the weekend to explore other readings or if you slip behind, you can use the weekend to catch up. Our readings are truly just skimming the surface of God's Story.

O Lord, may my soul rise up to meet you as the day rises to meet the sun.

John 1:1-15

John does a remarkable thing. Right at the beginning of his book, with no explanation or apology, he connects Jesus to the creation of the universe. Jesus was with God and was God at the beginning. Wrap your brain around that.

Just a couple of thoughts.

First for you apologists. Skeptics would say the belief that Jesus was divine is a later, more refined concept that early believers did not hold. But a small fragment of papyrus (P52 Ryland papyrus) with a portion of John's Gospel was discovered in Egypt. Most scholars suggest the date of the fragment as early in the second century (125 AD). Marry this fragment with how far it traveled and you end up with a quite early date for John's Gospel to have been written. You can read about it here. Even the most conservative (later) datings are impressive and the portion of Scripture it contains shows Jesus intentionally heading to the cross.

Second, in light of yesterdays conversation on the transcendent (wholly other) and immanent (very present) nature of God, Jesus is the intersection of Creator and created. The material and the divine are found only in/on/through him. I'm guarding my words here because I'm not sure what mere words could convey Jesus as very God and very man. Paul wrote, ". . . have the same attitude as Christ Jesus, who being IN VERY NATURE GOD . . ." Time for three and a half pounds of gray matter to explode.

And yet this Jesus spent thirty years in the neighborhood with no one noticing. (Thanks Alan Hirsch) What does that tell us about the nature of God? When we desire a Big God with Big Stick and a Loud Voice, God shows up on the planet He created in a whisper (so as not to frighten us out of our begeebees?), to make sure we would bend our knee out of love and not out of fear.

Fall on your knees. I've got to stop and worship now.

Transformation - Day 5

"Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.

     He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,

for through him God created everything

     in the heavenly realms and on earth.

  He made the things we can see

     and the things we can’t see—

  such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.

     Everything was created through him and for him.

 He existed before anything else,

     and he holds all creation together.

 Christ is also the head of the church,

     which is his body.

  He is the beginning,

     supreme over all who rise from the dead.

     So he is first in everything.

  For God in all his fullness

     was pleased to live in Christ,

 and through him God reconciled

     everything to himself.

  He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth

     by means of Christ’s blood on the cross." - Colossians 1:15-20

I'm not gonna write much this morning.  These words speak for themselves.  I would encourage you to get away, somewhere by yourself, to worship.  And soak up these words, ponder these words, meditate, reflect, commune . . .  Jesus is the Ultimate.  the Source of all life.  Apart from him, we can do nothing.  Connected to him, we will produce much fruit.

There's a great book out right now by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola called Jesus Manifesto. It speaks to the supremacy of Jesus Christ.  He is the great separator.  Many want to lump all religions together, but knowing who Jesus is and KNOWING him won't allow.  Again, read Paul's majestic poem and see if you can lower Jesus to the place of Mohamed or Moses or Confucius. It can't be done and that is why there will always be "trouble" with our world.  Not because Christians are better, but because Christ is supreme.

I've attached a Third Day video - kinda cool - I think in Russian.  I did a music video to this incredible song a few years ago on DVD, but I couldn't rip it so it will have to wait.  So watch this or google search your favorite picture of Jesus and focus on it while listening to the  words - just let the words penetrate into your soul.  Today, learn to worship with an audience of ONE.

natural frequency

exponential conference 2008 - the day after

just got back from Orlando, FL at a church planters conference - three intense days of sessions, seminars and networking all geared around connecting church planters and reproducing churches to new ideas (and old ones), techniques, and technologies (plenty of vendors). one of the sessions was on blogging (why i'm here at blogger) but that's not why I write.

the conference was a lot like drinking water from a fire hydrant - ideas and competing ideas and (really) far too much stuff for my ADD brain to handle. one of the first sessions was on the tension between being an attractional church (build it and "they" will come) and an incarnational church ("they" won't come so we must hangout with "them") i wish i could unpack this because of course it is not nearly this simple and tidy and i don't like us-them thinking.

but what i did want to get at was this sense of who i (and my team) resonated with. being a former engineer, i've always been fascinated with the idea of natural frequency - that everything has a frequency at which at which it likes to vibrate (go into a bathroom stall and hum at various pitches until you hit a pitch where the stall starts to join you in song (i wouldn't recommend doing this when others are in the bathroom too)). you get the same affect from plucking a guitar string and having another vibrate or watch the youtube video of the Tacoma Bridge collapse. . .

(remember that video from high school physics? only one small dog was lost in the shooting of this video.)


anyway . . . back to the conference . . . i found myself really resonating with Alan Hirsch, Neil Cole, Andy Stanley, John Burke, Tim Keller, and Larry Osborne (almost forgot - Vince Antonucci.) and really going flat with others (even Rick Warren). i wonder if this had anything to do with personality and preferences, maybe theological bias, or whether just somewhere, deep in my soul, this is who God wired me to be and these speakers speak to the kind of church God is calling me to plant. they "struck a chord" - my natural frequency. we had three members of our core team there as well (a female clergy and lay couple) and they need to share their experiences as well.

so broke the first rule of blogging - keep it short - but hey, it's my first time.